Western Digital—Western Digital secretly switched WD Red NAS drives from CMR to slower SMR technology without disclosure, facing class action lawsuit
In 2020, it was discovered that Western Digital had secretly transitioned its WD Red NAS-rated hard drives from Conventional Magnetic Recording (CMR) to the slower Shingled Magnetic Recording (SMR) technology without informing customers. SMR drives perform poorly in NAS RAID arrays, the exact use case WD Red drives were marketed for. This led to a class action lawsuit and widespread industry criticism. WD eventually created a separate WD Red Plus line with CMR technology.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Consumer Protection | -against | primary | -1.00 |
| Corporate Transparency | -against | secondary | -0.50 |
| Overall incident score = | -0.643 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (high ×1.5) × confidence (0.57)
Evidence (1 signal)
Ars Technica investigation confirmed WD Red NAS drives were silently switched from CMR to SMR
Ars Technica reported that Western Digital had quietly changed WD Red NAS drives from CMR to SMR recording technology without disclosure. Benchmarks showed severe degradation in RAID/NAS workloads, the exact use case the drives were marketed for. A class action lawsuit followed.